Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

As we inch closer to the big holiday of the season, there are plenty of events taking place, but fewer and fewer new ones. This weekend around Dallas will feature a trio of concerts, a national tour of Broadway musical, a holiday festival, versions of both A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker, and a visit from a Food Network star.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events. Looking for the best Christmas lights in town? That list is here.

Thursday, December 8

Punch Brothers and Béla Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart
Two mainstays in the bluegrass music genre, the Punch Brothers and Béla Fleck, will team up for this special concert. Punch Brothers have been at the top of the bluegrass charts since their debut in 2008, which each of their eight albums or EPs landing at No. 1 or 2. Fleck has boldly gone where no banjo player has gone before, a musical journey that has earned him 15 Grammys in nine different genres. My Bluegrass Heart is his first bluegrass tour in 24 years. They'll play at Majestic Theatre.

Broadway Dallas presents Six
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. From Tudor Queens to Pop Princesses, the six wives of Henry VIII take the mic to remix 50 years of historical heartbreak into an exuberant celebration of 21st century girl power. The national tour of the Broadway musical Six runs through December 25 at Winspear Opera House.

Friday, December 9

Old City Park presents 50th Annual Candlelight
Old City Park will present its 50th Candlelight, the longest running holiday event in Texas. There will be over 13 acres of decorated buildings, strolling carolers, craft vendors, food trucks, and crafts for kids on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend kicks off with Cocktails by Candlelight on Friday. At the 21+ event, guests can enjoy drinks at the park while they see a sneak peek of Candlelight. There will be vendors, Victorian Carolers, drinks, snacks, music, and more.

Company of Rowlett Performers presents A Christmas Carol
Company of Rowlett Performers will present their version of A Christmas Carol, which recounts the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The production runs through December 17 at Plaza Theater in Garland.

Avant Chamber Ballet presents The Nutcracker
Avant Chamber Ballet will present its production of Paul Mejia’s The Nutcracker with live orchestra. The production features Tchaikovsky’s timeless score conducted by Brad Cawyer, ACB’s professional dancers, bright young stars chosen from schools across Dallas, unique sets and costumes, and the Arts District decked out with the season’s best. There will be five performances through Sunday at Moody Performance Hall.

Zoé in concert
Mexican rock band Zoé has made waves in both their native country and the United States over the past 20 years. Since 2001, they've released seven albums - most recently 2021's Sonidos de Karmática Resonancia - with three of them being nominated for Best Latin Rock Album at the Grammys, nabbing one award. They'll play at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Saturday, December 10

Alton Brown Live: Beyond The Eats – The Holiday Variant
Television personality, author, and Food Network and Netflix star Alton Brown comes to Dallas as part of his Alton Brown Live: Beyond The Eats – The Holiday Variant tour. His latest production mixes together science, music, food, and festive fun into two hours of pure entertainment. The event will be at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Kings Return in concert
Kings Return is a vocal band of brothers made up of Gabe Kunda, Vaughn Faison, J.E. McKissic, and Jamall Williams. At this concert at Lewisville Grand Theater, they'll perform fan favorites, alongside tracks from their Merry Little Christmas EP and their debut album, Rove. They will also be sharing stories behind their favorite Christmas songs.

Photo by Jordan Fraker

Avant Chamber Ballet presents The Nutcracker with a live orchestra at Moody Performance Hall, December 9-11.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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